This article originally appeared in the January 2018 print edition of Cannabis Business Times. To subscribe, click here.
Cody Stross has been working persistently for years to be head of one of California’s top cannabis brands and see his products sold in more than 80 dispensaries across the state.
The Humboldt County-based company officially launched in 2015 and received its county permit in 2016, but Stross, the company’s founder, says the Northern Emeralds dream started closer to 2008, at a time when the Emerald Triangle was more familial, more congenial and definitely less formal. Business deals were more often sealed with handshakes on dirt roads than with lawyers and written contracts.
In this scene, Stross found three issues on which he wanted to capitalize: a lack of professionalism, a lack of quality and a lack of consistency. “In Humboldt County and as a cultivator in California cultivating under [Proposition] 215, there was always a lot of disconnect from 99 percent of the farmers in the state,” Stross says. “There was a disconnect from the farmer and the consumer.”
Formalizing business in California would not only represent a dramatic culture shift, but would give Stross’ team the information and data it needed to mend that disconnect and better understand the marketplace-and, ultimately, build a quality-focused brand.
To read the full article in Cannabis Business Times' January issue, click here.
Top photo by Dave Woody
